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Tuesday, March 29, 2016

I have not seen so
many anti-nationals in my lifetime. It’s
like raining traitors this season in India.
All of a sudden, there are traitors and anti-nationals everywhere in
this country. Like how the enemies of the
State suddenly came onto the scene from within in various countries of Europe in
early 1900s, like in Germany, and in Italy, there are enemies of India everywhere
from within India. These enemies of
India come in the form and shape of protesting Dalit students in university
campus, they come in the form of ordinary farm worker who ate beef, and they
come in the form of journalists and editors.

Sedition cases,
those used by the British Empire to incarcerate the freedom fighters of India,
are springing up everywhere like it’s the Spring Revolution of Tunisia. This country is geared for
witch-hunting. All of a sudden each of
us is asked to prove our patriotism. To
do that, we have to chant a devout slogan for a Goddess. Otherwise we are traitors who will sent to
Pakistan.

And how do these
traitors look? They look just like you, the ordinary people, they are your nice
neighbors. Oh! Don’t be fooled! They are
all traitors, they are all anti-nationals, as the Hindutva leaders tell you. They come in the form of liberals, the
seculars, the communists, the socialists, the SCs, the STs, the OBCs, the
Muslims, and the Christians. They come in the form of students, the teachers,
the professors, the journalists, the editors, the book writers, and the movie
makers. They are everywhere. They are the enemies within. And amidst all these anti-nationals, there is
only one patriot. He wears a Khakhi
uniform or wears a tilak. And he owes his allegiance to Hindutva ideology.

And there is only
one prescribed and sanctioned expression of love for your country. You have to chant ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’. Anything less, you are traitor. ‘Jai Hind’ won’t do. ‘Hindustan Zindabad’ won’t do.

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

On the controversy
surrounding Asaduddin Owaisi’s refusal to chant ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’, Bharka
Dutt of NDTV asks Owaisi, ‘Why would you say NO to a slogan which does not
have a religious connotation - that simply describes the country to be a
motherland?’

When I Google Searched ‘Bharath Mata’ in Images, this is
what I get. These are the first few
results.

Another controversy is now brewing across the
country. Asaduddin Owaisi, MP from Hyderabad, said that he won’t
say ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’. He insisted that he won’t chant this slogan even if
someone puts a sword on his neck.

Owaisi says he is a patriot, but not a nationalist (the
way RSS defines). Mr. Rakesh Sinha, the
other commentator, says that a person who doesn’t say, ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’
cannot love his country. Whereas Owaisi asks, do you have a problem if we say, ‘Hindustan Zindabad'? [He later said, 'Jai Hind' on TV]

This raises fundamental questions about how we view
our country. What is India to each of
us?

Monday, March 07, 2016

During the course of JNU row many have contended in TV debates and
online discussions that ordinary people in India do not
have a right to protest a Supreme Court Decision. One
anchor even asked a JNU student leader, ‘Do you think you know more than the
Supreme Court judges that you could protest their decision?’

Most Indians tend to think that a protest against
Supreme Court decision should not be allowed.
However, in most mature democracies, including India, people have
protested against Supreme Court decisions. There are many examples. But here I describe a notable one.

When Abraham Lincoln was the President, the US Government
passed 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to US
Constitution to emancipate Black people in that country, giving them equal
rights. For about twenty years they
enjoyed this freedom as equal citizens.
However, a Supreme Court Decision (Plessy v. Ferguson 1896) reversed
most of these amendments thereby creating Jim Crow laws that implemented
‘separate but equal’ doctrine. Blacks
were segregated, lynched, and denied voting rights. Basically, the Black man was not treated as
equal citizen.

It took major protests of 1950s and 1960s to reverse
the Supreme Court decision of 1896.
People came out in thousands to protest these laws. Martin Luther King is one of the leaders of
this Civil Rights Movement.

Sunday, March 06, 2016

Smrita
Irani, Minister for HRD, in her speech
in Lok Sabha, while referring to a pamphlet on Mahishasur Martyrdom Day that
described Goddess Durga as ‘sex worker’, asks, ‘Is this freedom of speech?’

She
then asks, ‘What is this depraved mentality?’

She
believes that a group which celebrates Mahishasur, and describes Goddess Durga as
‘sex worker’ is mentally depraved and she believes such a group should NOT be
allowed to express their opinion. She
questions everyone else who is supporting JNU students:‘Freedom of speech, ladies and
gentleman. Who wants to have this discussion…? I want to know.’

This
is where Hindutva gets it wrong.Not only
do they do not understand the concept of India, they fail quite miserably when
they try to define Hinduism for all of us.Each time they try to bring a new section of Hindus into their fold enforcing
conformance in their definition of Hinduism, they alienate some other section
of Hindus.

Smriti
Irani is bang on in reflecting the true prejudices of Hindutva proponents when
she accuses the group identities that have distributed the pamphlets, in her
own words, “SC, ST and minority”
students of JNU.Isn’t this the same allegation
levelled against Hindutva groups? That they are against the interests of SC, ST
and minorities in this country?

You know
there is something grossly wrong with a nation when it books a man on ‘sedition’
for demanding ‘freedom from casteism’, and books another
man for ‘defacement of property’ for offering ‘reward to kill a real person’.

Today
I woke up in the land of Taliban – the fear that I expressed many times over
the last many years.‘Look, I said so!’ just
doesn’t cut it anymore.

The
fears that I expressed about this nation are slowly turning out to be
true.

Talibanization
of this country is now picking up pace.Nationalism is hijacked by one group, one ideology, who now portray
every other group, and every other ideology as ‘anti-national’.